Book
Tales of burning love : a novel
Record details
- ISBN: 9780061767999 (softcover)
-
Physical Description:
print
452, 34 pages : genealogical table, illustrations ; 21 cm - Edition: First Harper Perennial Modern Classics edition.
- Publisher: New York : Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2013.
- Copyright: ©1996
Search for related items by subject
| Subject: | Divorced women -- Fiction Blizzards -- Fiction North Dakota -- Fiction Funeral rites and ceremonies -- Fiction Indigenous authors -- North America -- Fiction |
| Genre: | Domestic fiction. |
| Topic Heading: | Indigenous. First Nations. |
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- 0 of 1 copy available at University College of the North Libraries.
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- 0 current holds with 1 total copy.
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| Location | Call Number / Copy Notes | Barcode | Shelving Location | Holdable? | Status | Due Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Pas Campus Library | PS 3555 .R42 T36 2013 (Text) | 58500000808998 | Stacks | Volume hold | In process | - |
- Kirkus Reviews : Kirkus Reviews 1996 February
~ Erdrich opens her sprawling and ambitious new novel with the same haunting episode that began Love Medicine (1984): A young Chippewa woman gets out of a car and walks through a snowstorm to her death--but this time we see it all through the eyes of the man who was with her in that car. Jack Mauser never lets go of the memory of June Kashpaw vanishing into the North Dakota snow. He considers her his first wife, though he was were married to her in a dubious ceremony and they knew each other for less than a day. Jack goes on to collect- -and be dumped by--four more wives: brainy and passionate Eleanor; brittle Candice; beautiful, low-life Marlis; and, finally, stolid Dot (a child in The Beet Queen, 1986), who's fond of Jack but, deep down, still loves her ``real'' husband, imprisoned Gerry Nanapush. All four ex-wives are forced together when Jack's house burns down. He's presumed dead, though the evidence is inconclusive, and after a funeral service, the four women drive off together into a howling blizzard. When their car gets stuck in a remote spot, it seems they could easily meet June Kashpaw's fate--and in fact the specter of June could be among them in the form of a mysterious, silent hitchhiker whom Dot has insisted on picking up. Erdrich has a lot of fun probing the possibilities of four ex-wives trapped together with all their small rivalries and disappointments--and some of their most heartfelt secrets--revealed to one another. But despite some great moments, it all goes on much too long as the women tell their detailed but not always compelling life stories. There's just too much material going in too many different directions to keep the storyline taut. Still, there are good surprises--the hitchhiker's true identity is one--and Erdrich's prose shines as brilliantly as ever. Maybe not quite tales of burning love, but definitely plenty of smoke. (First serial to Cosmopolitan; Literary Guild alternate selection; $150,000 ad/promo; author tour) Copyright 1999 Kirkus Reviews - Library Journal Reviews : LJ Reviews 1995 December
In her new novel, Erdrich departs from her "Love Medicine" series, but-if the title is any indication-not from the forthright passion that has always colored her work. Copyright 1995 Cahners Business Information. - Library Journal Reviews : LJ Reviews 1996 April
Erdrich's rich, lapidary new novel opens with Jack Mauser drinking himself silly with a young pick-up, who subsequently freezes to death in her thin shoes in a North Dakota blizzard. Jack would certainly seem to be a loser, and someone any sane woman would stay away from, but this isn't a novel about him. It's a novel about his many wives, who come together at his funeral sometime later and get stuck in another blizzard, which gives them the opportunity to open up about their deepest secrets. Since this is Erdrich (The Beet Queen, LJ 8/86) writing, these women are predictably passionate, quirky, and, well, unpredictable, ranging from solid Dot (who married Jack on a dare and has another husband in jail), utterly seductive Eleanor, brisk Candace, and childlike Marlis. The plot may sound a bit formulaic, but the effect is anything but. Erdrich sometimes pushes her sensuous descriptions over the top, and the effect is near-parody. But the result will entertain readers everywhere. For most collections.?Barbara Hoffert, "Library Journal" Copyright 1996 Cahners Business Information. - Publishers Weekly Reviews : PW Reviews 1996 February #3
Some of the excitement that greeted Erdrich's first book, Love Medicine, will be rekindled with the publication of her captivating fifth novel. While building on the strengths for which she is noted (she again portrays several Native American families whose interconnected life stories coalesce into a unified narrative), Erdrich here broadens her range and ambitions. She constructs this book with a more conventional novelistic form and sets most of it outside the reservation. A robust richness of both plot and character, and an irresistible fusion of tension, mystery and dramatic momentum, add up to powerful, magical storytelling. Two epochal, whiteout North Dakota blizzards 23 years apart define the major events of Jack Mauser's life. During the first, in 1972, his young Chipewa wife, whom he has just married after a few hours acquaintance during a drunken binge, leave his car to perish in the cold (an event foreshadowed in The Bingo Palace). During the second, in 1995, Jack's succeeding wives, all four of them, are trapped overnight in Jack's van, having come together for his funeral. In this quartet of personalities, Erdrich creates a gallery of indelible portraits, each of them distinct, vivid and human in their frailties. What they have in common, their love for charming, preening, self-destructive Jack, is their means of survival through the frigid night. Each woman tells her tale-always full of passion, but often farcical, too-of how Jack wooed, wed, frustrated, drove to distraction, liberated and deserted her. These stories provide both catharsis and insight, allowing each to understand how she in turn contributed to Jack's destruction. And the dialogue, especially the bickering among claustrophobically confined women, is pungent and smart. Erdrich reveals here a new talent for unexpected plot twists and cliff-hanger chapter endings, some funny, some melodramatic. If there are a few too many coincidences (Jack, who is presumed dead but is not, reluctantly kidnaps his own infant son, who in turn is kidnapped by Jack's fifth wife's ex-husband, also presumed dead), it all seems quite plausible in the context of Erdrich's adroit manipulation of interlocking plot strands. Her eye for sensual detail is impeccable, whether it is the evocation of the landscape and weather of the North Dakota plains or the many erotic couplings that Jack's wives, and Jack himself, remember. Jack, too, is a triumph; he's a real scamp and philanderer with other deplorable character traits, but Erdrich limns him with tolerant humor and compassion. Erdrich has definitely gone commercial here, and some readers may miss the ethereal, mystical qualities of her early work. But like several characters who are psychologically or almost literally reborn, reinspired and reset on life's path, Erdrich has granted her literary reputation refreshing new potency. 100,000 first printing; $150,000 ad/promo; author tour; first serial to Cosmopolitan; Literary Guild alternate; dramatic rights: Charles Rembar. (Apr.) Copyright 1996 Cahners Business Information.
